EMAIL: schimmler@ica.uni-stuttgart.de
NAME: Marc Schimmler
TOPIC: ruins
COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT.
TITLE: Poseidon's Palace
COUNTRY: Germany
WEBPAGE: http://www.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/~marc/povray.html
RENDERER USED: povray 3.1e custom compile for IRIX
TOOLS USED: Nathan O'Brien's column include file (slightly modified for longer
            columns)
            XFig for image map outlinr development
            gimp for image map refinement
            xv for jpeg conversion
RENDER TIME: ~10 hrs
HARDWARE USED: SGI O2

 
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: 
I always liked the creations of Giovanni B. Piranesi and the related works of
Francois Schuiten. Somehow they are able to make the ruins of the past look
better than the creations of the present. It's imagination of the viewer that
tries to rebuild the remaining pillars, walls to greatness they had owned
before. Having this in mind, i used a graphic by Schuiten (sure inspired by
Piranesi) as a starter not knowing excatly how it would look in the end 
(see  http://members.aol.com/IKONPress/index.html ).

The submitted picture is not in the state I would wish for but nonetheless
worth to a have a look at (I hope so). There's still a lot left to do, but time
was a critical factor here (the loss of one weeks work due to a ZIP dive
failure didn't help either :-). I hope you enjoy it. 

For further information on both artists:
Piranesi: http://www.staatsgalerie.de/piranesi/index.htm  a german site 
Schuiten: http://www.urbicande.be
          


DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED:

This image was mainly created by massive CSG. This true for the architecural
elements as well as for the paddle steamer. For the water I used a textured
plane and for the sky I used the layered spheres technique together with a
fog declaration.  

Three image maps were used. The captain and the lady are image maps that are
rotated towards the camera. Both outlines were drawn in XFig and then colored
using gimp. The writing on the paddle-casing has also been made with XFig. 

The bush consists of several blob layers with a partly transparent texture,
thus giving the illusion of a 3D leaf structure. The smoke was made with
absorbing media using multiple density declarations. 

The columns are those of Nathan O'Brien column_include file with slight
modifications. I don't include this files because of the modifications and the
irritations that might be caused by the modifcations. On request I'll send
them and the font for the paddle steamers name.


All the Best,

Marc